I'm a big man with big hands. And if there's one thing I've learned from testing laptops, it's that a good keyboard and trackpad on a laptop is a bit like a toilet: you take it for granted until you're stuck with one that doesn't work so well.
Here's our list of complaints about the keyboards and trackpads of laptop PCs, some of which were provided by readers via Twitter.
The turf war between Page Up and Down and arrow keys
Samsung and Acer: this is your official warning. Samsung's Go, NC20 and N120 and the Acer Aspire One 751h all put the Page Up and Page Down keys to the left and right of the Up arrow. These keys are already small; keeping these two by the arrows makes for a navigational nightmare for anyone with slightly larger hands.
Pro tip: keep Page Up and Down as alternate functions for the Up and Down arrows instead. The Toshiba Satellite U505-S2940 gets credit for putting Page Up/Down close enough to the arrow keys to be convenient but not easily confused.
Wide spaces, small keys
With the HP Mini 5101 and the Sony Vaio X series, the keys are barely larger than the spaces between each key. Why? Who knows. Maybe it's supposed to make you feel like you can afford to waste keyboard space. Or maybe they're not meant to be used by people with adult-sized hands.
One trackpad button
I'm more than familiar with single-button mice thanks to years of Macintoshes, but if you're going to use one trackpad button for right and left click, make sure the middle of the trackpad isn't a useless dead zone. It may look prettier to have one button instead of two, but I'd gladly take the two if it meant that I didn't hit the middle of the trackpad button in frustration half the time. The Samsung netbooks and the Acer Aspire One 751h were the most egregious offenders here.
Miniature function keys
Function keys can make work easier unless you hit the wrong one. Full-sized keyboards indent between the number keys and the function keys as well as between groups of four function keys to make it easier for a person to find the one they want without looking at the keyboard. The HP EliteBook 2530p and Toshiba Satellite U505-S2940, however, line them up without any useful indentation whatsoever.
Number pad problems
Several readers told us via Twitter that they absolutely need a number pad on their laptops. It's not enough to just have one, though - if there's no divider bar to tell my fingers I'm wandering into number land, I'm not going to use it much. (I'm looking at you, Gateway NV5807u.)
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Comments
tdog said: you guys are retards if you cant figure out how to make to deal with these problems always complaining blah blah blah im sure you can always go to good will and buy yourself a crap win box to make yourself fell better about the fact that you cant adaptEsto superstes
Annonymous said: In my view laptops are the work of satan You are hunched over a crapped keyboard straining to see a screen that is almost always angled so that the light bounces off the area you are trying to view and dont get me started on the track pad When my Mums ancient laptop finally shuddered to a halt I replaced it with a desktop bliss
Squillary said: Why limit yourself to so few problems with laptops You didnt even get to my gripes yet Dodgy keyboards incapable navigation lack of resilience to anything lack of upgradeability lack of portability failure of components expense of everything low quality of everything cost of repair unavailability of components for repairTo my shame I just had to buy one a pretty good highly specd one and I dread every second on it I have itbecause its better than the complete dross I get given to use
LaBia said: Get a life